Month: December 2008

The weather is turning frosty and  windy. I have pine needles all over the place after the wind. The frost may have turned these berries sweet for the birds so I’m glad I got this photo before they are all eaten.

This is the Physalis I had drying on top of the kitchen cupboard (journal 9th October). They are papery to touch and will keep their colour for years.

I’m hoping santy will bring me plenty of little helpers so the Garden is not as much work next year!  Been doing very little except protecting plants as much as I can over the recent cold snap. Luckily I spread bark mulch over all but one bed so I’m hoping the blanket of mulch will protect some plants. I think the beds look better now with the bark just waiting for a dry windy day to see if the stuff actually stays on the ground and not onto the deck.

It’s been so wet and cold hav’nt got to manure my veg beds but I’m hoping to do soon. i manured my carrots to late last year and ended up with some very interesting forked carrots last year. I also grew them in cell’s indoors which I won’t do this year, say the same thing happened to Alice on Gardeners World so don’t feel too bad especially as it’s my first year to grow veg.

Happy Christmas

My Hyacinth in a bowl have now started to flower. Unfortunately, although I bought white bulbs, they have turned out to be actually pink – both the packets!

I guess I wasn’t destined to be posh.

This is the base for my Holly wreath. It is made out of Birch twigs and Willow which is lovely and pliable.  I didn’t have to use anything to tie it together so far as I wove in each piece and it worked quite nicely.  As I write there is a thrush outside the window picking berries off the Holly I cut for the wreath so I may have to cut some more, but I’m happy to provide food for the birds on frosty mornings like this.  There is also a Chaffinch picking seeds off the Stachys Byzantina which is nice to see, and a robin is eating seeds we put out this morning.

This Fatsia was only a slip two years ago. Today I saw its first flower , the first time I have ever seen a Fatsia flower and I am wondering will I get the black fruits that normally follow.

I popped into a Garden Centre yesterday and came across packets of tulips at half price. They were firm and healthy, some even trying to grow in their packets. Anyway, although I was sworn off tulips for this autumn, I succumbed.

I bought 20 Queen of the Night and 32 Peaches & Cream (double earlies) which I planted today in two ceramic pots. I lined the sides of the pots with plastic and put stones at the bottom for drainage. My hands nearly fell off from the cold as this bit had to be done outside.

But now I am indoors, admiring my handiwork before I put it outside – can’t wait until they flower in spring. I do love tulips.

I love to get Roses in the winter but I also like to cut a few buds for drying at the end of the season. They dry quite easily hung up in the kitchen. I decided I would make a picture out of these Rose buds.

The severity of the frosts has caught me by surprise! The last few mild winters had lulled me into a false sense of security. Some less hardy perennials that I used dig up and store in the shed when we had hard winters have been left exposed as in the last few years and I fear for their survival. Similarly with some potted up Japanese acers that I should have moved to shelter. Other pots of Marguerites look decidedly dead! I’ve been growing them from seed in recent years and some even seed in gravel paths – hence my complacency!

 I’ve not been idle recently however. Over the last two years I have been cutting away the lower branches of trees and shrubs that had been restricting the amount of light getting into the garden. This had resulted in several large, unattractive piles of branches, that had to be got rid of by some means. My new Viking shredder ( a prize in this year’s garden competition ) has been very busy for several days now – it’s a brilliant machine, even when operated by a mechanical novice like myself! Masses of branches have been reduced to small piles of material I can use as a mulch or add to the compost heap – it really is a heap by the way. I now have access to a little stream that had been obscured by this material on its banks and I now plan to plant  up this area.

 The frosts however will hopefully get rid of some garden pests that have become rampant in recent years. I’m thinking in particular of vine weevils! I’ve been finding these little demons at the roots of sedum spectabile – they seem to love this plant!Saw tulips today in local supermarket with 75% off the marked price – bought them of course! Also bought five bare-root roses by mail order from Irish company in Cork ( Future forests ) and they arrived the next day! Already looking forward to seeing them flower! Bye for now.      

New pictures in album ‘My garden’. I’ve bought new camera!

This picture was taken on Saturday 13 December. I can’t decide whether to cut it to dry or put it in a vase. Ernest has a lovely smell and dosen’t go to mush in the rain,but has only an average resistance to disease. I mostly like to keep disease resistant roses as I don’t have the time to spray them. I do have Albertine and New Dawn which would break your heart with blackspot.

Yesterday we started making the patio bed to replace the dandelion bed that was there before.  We dug the foundation and just back-filled with clause 804 (we were covering the back road with it) We smashed a few left-over slate stones and built the 4 walls around.  It took 1 barrow load of horse manure and 3 more loads of soil from the pile down the hill.  Thank you Bob!  But there is room for more.  The pictures were taken from the shelter of the house this morning so there will be no gardening done today.

I will be planting a crab apple in the centre of the bed and underplanting with buxus sempervirens. I think the variety of crab apple is Everest.  I tried to get Golden Hornet but they only had lolly pop shaped ones where the grafting was at the top of the stem.  I intend to cloud prune the box and I’ll pleach the crab apple so that eventually there will be about three main stems with a high crown so that we can see through the stems from the dining table.

On the other side of the steps I’m going to build a pond the same size and shape as the crab apple bed but at a height that we can sit on the side and dip our fingers into the water.  Of course I’ll have to put a layer of galvanised steel walkway under the surface to stop the kids from falling in.

Big plans – just hope the weather improves.

 

Today I’ve got my first real issue of "The Irish Garden"! I’m so inspired!

Dear Susan! Thank you very much for that! You couldn’t make a better choise than July 2008 issue. Eryngium is one of my specially interested plants.

By the way, I have sansevieria in my indoor collection. We call this plant "pike’s
tail". 

 

Yesterday I decided to cut down the Cosmos plants.   The frost during the past week or so has finished off the last flowers and browned the seed heads. They have given me a wonderful return for a little effort and I intend to grow more of them next year. I have collected lots of Cosmos seeds and will sow them again next Spring.   Anyone interested in seed swopping should contact me. 

I threw the cuttings into compost heap no. 2 ( Compost heap No. 1 is full and will be turned with a fork several times during the Winter and Spring to help the composting process).

During the past couple of weeks I have been clearing old tired plants from the borders and transplanting seedlings in their place.   Seedlings have sprung up in all of the borders and I have selected the strongest of these for transplanting.    I haven’t seen any cosmos seedlings so maybe they are not as prolific as Alyssum, Antirrhinum (Snapdragon) or Digitalis (Foxglove).

I dug up all of my Cyclamen from the front side border and collected dozens of seedlings and larger corms, some as large as side-plates.   I spread the larger ones along the border and ended up with over a dozen small to medium sized corms and dozens of smaller ones left-over, all of which I shall pass on to family, friends and neighbours.   I still have lots more growing in other borders in both front and rear gardens so if anyone is interested in them I shall be only too pleased to oblige.

The weather from now on looks as if it might be too wet for working in the garden. Walking on the wet soil and even on the lawn is inclined to compact the ground.   I would like to mow the grass in the lawns but the weather for mowing hasn’t been good.   I’m hoping we might get some drying weather over the Christmas period for mowing purposes.  

 

Some of the days this time of the year can be very dreary. So I took some photos of plants around the garden that might lift the day.

New Year holidays are almost here. This weekend I have a brief respite in working, shopping, wrapping and writing and sending greetings. An excellent moment to make some plans.

So, what I suppose to do next year:

1) Revise my indoor collection. That means – find new habitations for multiplied plants (senpolia, kalanchoe, dracaena), organize more space for plants that spread out, think about addition places for new plants, and give away some plants that aren’t good for our flat. Next year I want to try new indoors – jasminum, clivia, phalaenopsis, and maybe some kind of small ornamental citrus. I also intend to renew geraniums and try new sorts. I’ll focus my attention on plants with flowers.

2) Make a reconstruction of balcony. I want to change the furniture, think about new shelfs and hanging baskets. More space in balcony – more opportunities to try something new.

3) Select plants for summer. Our balcony has not very good north-west position.

These common teasels are very tall and very attractive to bees. When they are dried they look very effective sprayed ghostly white. silver or gold. Mind the prickles though!

This ‘Expert’ series of books I have found to be the best from the beginning. They tell you every thing you need to know for beginners and ‘expert’ gardeners. When I get a new plant I check these books to find out what conditions the plant needs. I always keep the ‘Tree and Shrub Expert’ handy to remind me the correct time of the year to prune the different shrubs.

I upload new pictures in the album about Vologda. This winter we had a very interesting effect. River become frozen later than it normally was, just 1,5 weeks ago.  And as long as there was no snow, ice looked like a glass. Nobody believe that it’s strong enough. But you can see that people walk across and, believe me, they aren’t crazy. 🙂

Susan, for you I upload full version of that ‘well laid out photograph’. As we say "wish God hear your words!" (about talent). I’m joking, of course. :)) But I’m glad if somebody like my pictures.

 

 

I took this photo this morning. I got this shrub years ago after I heard a talk by Charlie Wilkins from Cork. He was right, imagine a shrub that would be in  flower on Christmas Eve and have a beautiful frangrance. I cut a branch and brought it into the kitchen and even though the flowers are tiny it smells lovely. The flowers are then followed  by black fruits.

The garden provides lots of material for cutting and using in indoor arrangements – I use variegated holly, ivy, cut stems of dogwoods, cotoneaster with berries, rose-hips etc. My job at Christmas is to put up the tree and decorate mantelpieces etc.- it sure beats jobs like house-cleaning, clearing dishes, ironing, to mention just a few. It was so mild today I even got some weeding done and planted a rosebush-a China rose. Happy Christmas to all!

My bowls of Hyacinth found their place this Christmas eve on my mother’s grave. They will probably suffer vegetative shock, being suddenly put outdoors, but so it goes. She was the one who first encouraged me to grow Hyacinths.

That’s my son, Zac, in the background.

Happy Christmas to all.

Wish all members of garden.ie club be happy this Christmas!

Next 2009 New Year will be more peaceful, more interesting and more kind!

Merry Christmas  and a happy New Year!

 

 

My two gardening friends chasing each other in the corkscrew willow. These branches are lovely dried and placed in a large vase.

 John and Ann would like to wish  all are friends and fellow gardeners a very happy new year . Lets hope for a good growing summer.